Killer Santas bring a welcome dose of mean spirit to the holidays, poking fun at Christmas fantasies — the picture-perfect families and, of course, the notion that a bearded man in velvet pajamas might have nice intentions when he creeps down our chimneys in the dark. “Silent Night, Deadly Night,” a reboot of the 1984 slasher of the same name, takes these cozy visions and bludgeons them to death.
Written and directed by Mike P. Nelson, the film begins with a grisly origin story. On Christmas Day, little Billy sees his grandfather die; during the drive home, his parents are brutalized by an evil Santa who passes on his curse to the young survivor.
Years later, Billy (Rohan Campbell) is an itinerant serial killer whose bloodlust is activated during the advent, though his crush on Pam (Ruby Modine), the volatile daughter of his new boss, has him yearning for normalcy.
Campbell’s Billy is surprisingly tender. He’s a good guy struggling against mental illness, which Nelson’s script manifests, “Venom”-style, as a dialogue between his two selves. The bad side of Billy’s brain — whom he calls Charlie (Mark Acheson) — may not be all that wicked either, guiding Billy to serve justice upon the naughty, as in one amusingly outlandish scene when he tears through a Nazi holiday party with an ax.
Produced by the studio behind the “Terrifier” movies, “Silent Night, Deadly Night” similarly embraces bad taste, with the wounded Billy in place of the senselessly savage Art the Clown. Like those films, it’s also shot like a cheap TV movie and the buckets of guts and gore have a visceral, handmade quality. Nelson may be throwing too much at the wall, but he does manage to make you feel something beyond just gross-out thrills.
Silent Night, Deadly Night Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters.
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